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The Quantum Moment

How Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg Taught Us to Love Uncertainty

Robert P. Crease (Stony Brook University) Alfred Scharff Goldhaber (Stony Brook University)

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English
Norton
06 January 2016
The discovery of the quantum-the idea, born in the early 1900s in a remote corner of physics, that energy comes in finite packets instead of infinitely divisible quantities-planted a rich set of metaphors in the popular imagination. 

Quantum imagery and language now bombard us like an endless stream of photons. Phrases such as multiverses, quantum leaps, alternate universes, the uncertainty principle, and Schrodinger's cat get reinvented continually in cartoons and movies, coffee mugs and T-shirts, and fiction and philosophy, reinterpreted by each new generation of artists and writers. Is a  quantum leap  big or small? How uncertain is the uncertainty principle? Is this barrage of quantum vocabulary pretentious and wacky, or a fundamental shift in the way we think? All the above, say Robert P. Crease and Alfred Scharff Goldhaber in this pathbreaking book.

The authors - one a philosopher, the other a physicist-draw on their training and six years of co-teaching to dramatize the quantum's rocky path from scientific theory to public understanding. Together, they and their students explored missteps and mistranslations, jokes and gibberish, of public discussion about the quantum.  Their book explores the quantum's manifestations in everything from art and sculpture to the prose of John Updike and David Foster Wallace. The authors reveal the quantum's implications for knowledge, metaphor, intellectual exchange, and the contemporary world.

Understanding and appreciating quantum language and imagery, and recognizing its misuse, is part of what it means to be an educated person today. The result is a celebration of language at the interface of physics and culture, perfect for anyone drawn to the infinite variety of ideas.

By:   ,
Imprint:   Norton
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 208mm,  Width: 142mm,  Spine: 25mm
Weight:   360g
ISBN:   9780393351927
ISBN 10:   0393351920
Pages:   352
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Robert P. Crease writes the Critical Point column in Physics World and is a professor of philosophy at Stony Brook University. His books include The Great Equations and World in the Balance. Alfred Scharff Goldhaber is a professor of physics at Stony Brook University whose research ranges from elementary particles to cosmology. He also teaches an unorthodox course that introduces quantum mechanics by way of optics.

Reviews for The Quantum Moment: How Planck, Bohr, Einstein, and Heisenberg Taught Us to Love Uncertainty

"""While examining and celebrating the interplay between the sciences and humanities, Crease and Goldhaber do a first-rate job of explaining what quantum theory is all about…"" -- Prospect ""The general level of cultural commentary is more thoughtful and will engage and perhaps even challenge the attitude of scientists as well as philosophers and cultural critics."" -- Times Higher Education"


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